Shrill
cries they were when near--well-known cries that conveyed many
meanings to the ears of those of the slumbering millions of the great
city who waked to hear them. Cries that bore upon their significant,
small volume the weight of a world's woe and laughter and delight
and stress. To some, cowering beneath the protection of a night's
ephemeral cover, they brought news of the hideous, bright day; to
others, wrapped in happy sleep, they announced a morning that would
dawn blacker than sable night. To many of the rich they brought a
besom to sweep away what had been theirs while the stars shone; to
the poor they brought--another day.
All over the city the cries were starting up, keen and sonorous,
heralding the chances that the slipping of one cogwheel in the
machinery of time had made; apportioning to the sleepers while they
lay at the mercy of fate, the vengeance, profit, grief, reward and
doom that the new figure in the calendar had brought them. Shrill and
yet plaintive were the cries, as if the young voices grieved that so
much evil and so little good was in their irresponsible hands. Thus
echoed in the streets of the helpless city the transmission of the
latest decrees of the gods, the cries of the newsboys--the Clarion
Call of the Press.
Woods flipped a dime to the waiter, and said: "Get me a _Morning
Mars_."
When the paper came he glanced at its first page, and then tore a
leaf out of his memorandum book and began to write on it with the
little gold pencil.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174